


can't we just fuck with him a little?

by aranita



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Office Shenanigans, Pranks, Pre-Canon, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28997778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranita/pseuds/aranita
Summary: “I have an idea, but I’d need your help carrying it off.”“Daniel, I’m really busy with work right now, I don’t have time for your little side projects. Cutter wants -”Jacobi cut her off, “it’s pranking Cutter. He’s rude and he makes everybody’s life hell. I want to get a little payback. I could do it by myself, but you’d be a huge help keeping me from getting caught.”ORListen... Cutter's a dick and sometimes you wanna do shit to your awful boss. I'm just saying, the SI5 have the  skills to make that happen.
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi & Alana Maxwell, Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler, Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell, Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know Cutter's terrifying and this requires a lot of suspension of disbelief because who the hell would want to get on his bad side, but I'm here to have fun and having fun sometimes involves bad things happening to Marcus Cutter.

Maxwell walked back into the office looking tense. People who didn’t know her exceptionally well wouldn’t have noticed. Jacobi noticed.

“Rough day?” he asked. It was still early.

“I had a meeting with Cutter,” was all the explanation she gave.

Jacobi gave an understanding nod and turned back to his work. Time with Cutter was enough to ruin anybody’s day. He tried to focus on his project, he was trying to come up with a design for a new close range explosive that would do a limited harm. Kepler had requested it, but Jacobi thought a gun would basically do what he was asking for. But he wasn’t about to turn down a chance to make a new bomb. Sometimes you need the spark (pun intended) of a bomb. A gun just doesn’t give the same effect. People who aren’t scared of guns are usually scared of explosives. He was still in the planning phases, but thought he would be able to get down to the lab to start testing in a day or two.

That is, if he could focus on getting the planning done. He was thrown off his concentration by the fact that Maxwell still seemed off. She was normally… not distant, per say. She didn’t normally engage much with the people in the room. But she was normally engaging with something. Now she seemed withdrawn, tapping perfunctorily on her keyboard, rather than typing at her usual speed. Jacobi glanced at the clock. It was a little past three. He doubted either of them were going to get anything else done for the rest of the day.

He headed over to her desk, “hey Maxwell, wanna get out of here? I’m starving and I know you’ve been wanting to try that new Mexican place.”

“Hmm?” She looked up and blinked for a second as she processed his words. “Oh, which one? The one by the laundromat or the one by the Publix?”

“The one by the Walmart.”

“Oh, yeah, I have been wanting to check it out.” She looked back down at her computer and sighed. “But I need to get this work done.” She went back to listlessly tapping at her keyboard.

Jacobi would have to try another tack. He sat back down at his desk and started to plan. He flipped between windows on his computer, occasionally tapping his keyboard so it would look like he was still working. He didn’t look anything up or write anything down related to his planning. He didn’t want this to be traced back to him. He realized he would need help from Maxwell to pull it off, but he thought she would agree. The real question would be whether to bring Kepler on board. He’d be extremely helpful, but there was a chance he’d shut it down. Even if Maxwell didn’t want in, she wouldn’t stop him. Kepler would.

He waited for her to start packing up before ambushing her at the door, ready to go with his bag.

“So, the new Mexican place? My treat!” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned at her, knowing it would lighten the mood.

She glared at him a moment before agreeing, “your treat.”

She still seemed grumpy on the way over but better now that they were out of the office. Jacobi toyed with the idea of waiting till they reached the restaurant to share his plan, but his excitement got the better of him. “I have an idea, but I’d need your help carrying it off.”

“Daniel, I’m really busy with work right now, I don’t have time for your little side projects. Cutter wants -”

Jacobi cut her off, “it’s pranking Cutter. He’s rude and he makes everybody’s life hell. I want to get a little payback. I could do it by myself, but you’d be a huge help keeping me from getting caught.” He stared at the road while he talked, but he could feel her gaze on him.

“What kinds of things were you thinking?” she asked, and he grinned. She was in.

* * *

They agreed to wait so they would have time to plan and so that Cutter's most recent meeting wouldn’t be with Maxwell. She hacked into his calendar to see when if he planned to meet with anybody else in the coming weeks that might also have the means and motivation to pull something off like this. They figured most of the office had the motivation, but far fewer were able to pull it off. There were only a handful scheduled, so they decided to wait three weeks, but use the time to scope things out. Maxwell accessed the building blueprints to see what surrounded Cutter’s office on all sides. He had a massive corner office, but they could access the interior walls or if they were really having difficulty, the might be able to utilize the ceiling or floor.

They mapped out the security cameras on the way to his office, and determined the route with the least oversight. They kept a log of Mr. Cutter’s hours (very predictable), and the security officer’s patrols (less predictable). They decided that it would be easiest if they just had Jacobi stay in the office late one day while Maxwell went home and guided him by watching the cameras. She would block footage of him and help him dodge the guards.

They decided to practice a test run in advance, no pranks, just making sure he could get through okay, and that Maxwell could clear the security cameras in a way that couldn’t be traced when they inevitably went looking in detail. If they got caught, they might be able to pass it off as a training exercise.

Day of, Maxwell left a little early and Jacobi sat trying not to fidget as he waited for the message that she was all set. When it came, he placed an earbud in, waited to ensure he could hear her, and then put his phone in the top drawer of his desk and walked to the door.

“Hallway is clear, patching in 3, 2, 1 - head left.” Jacobi headed out the doorway and to the left following her instructions. “Our prime route is clear so far so keep heading that way, I’ll tell you to slow down if I need more time with the cameras, but otherwise stick to the plan.” He could hear the clacking of her keyboard over the comms, and was reassured. This would have been much harder without her. He trusted her to have his back.

He continued down the hallways, about to enter an out of the way stairwell when Maxwell interrupted, “wait, I think there’s a security guard in that stairwell. There’s a bathroom at the end of this hallway, I think it might be easiest to just duck in there until the guard leaves.” He nodded, unsure if he could see him at the moment, and continued on.

He was opening the door as quietly as he could when Maxwell said, “hang on, you should go in the women’s room. Most of the people on this floor are men and you’re less likely to have somebody walk into the ladies. But hurry, there aren’t cameras in the stairs so I don’t know where the guard is until he comes out.” Jacobi let out a breath of frustration and tried to gently close the door as quickly as possible, before turning around and easing into the women’s room. He stared for a moment then went into a stall and pulled his feet up just in case.

Speaking quietly Jacobi asked, “Alana, is this really the best move? Why couldn’t I have gone to one of the other routes?”

There was a pause before she responded, “well, I... misplaced a security guard so I didn’t want to direct you somewhere I wasn’t sure was safe.”

“You misplaced a security guard??” Jacobi hissed.

“It’s a big building, there are a lot of guards! I’m sure he’ll reappear in a minute. This is why we're doing a practice run! Now I know that it’s too much for me to keep track of at once, and I could either prioritize just the areas around you and your likely path, or I could use facial recognition and make some code to track them for me.” She paused for a moment, “it should be pretty easy code, I might be able to start it during this run, maybe if we’re lucky we could use it on the way out…” she trailed off sounding thoughtful.

“That sounds like a grand idea, but let's save it for when you’re not supposed to be planning my path, okay?” Jacobi said. He knew that if Maxwell got too excited about it she’d get sucked into creating the program and lose track of more guards.

“Yeah, yeah.” They sat in silence for a while, Jacobi was glad to not hear rapid typing because it meant she was probably paying attention to the guards, rather than going down a rabbit hole of code. Either that or she had muted herself so he wouldn’t hear her coding. He hoped it was the former. “Alright, the guard is out of the stairwell and the path ahead is clear. I still can’t find the missing guard so be extra cautious.”

“He’s probably taking a shit or something,” Jacobi joked, as he straightened his legs out and carefully exited the restroom. He went back to the stairs and headed up three flights. He paused before the door, “are we clear?”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen anybody in this section recently, but still be careful. I have a couple blind spots.”

Jacobi proceeded through the door, and continued cautiously, listening at each junction before turning. His caution wasn’t needed, as the path all the way there was clear.

Arriving at the door to Cutter’s office, he donned some gloves and pulled out a set of lockpicks. He carefully picked the lock and slipped inside, catching the door before it made a noise. He eased it back into the frame and then glanced around.

Maxwell spoke in his ear, “Daniel, what are you doing, I thought we were just checking the path.”

He didn’t speak for a moment as he quickly but carefully swept the room for bugs. He didn’t think there would be any, unless Cutter placed them himself. He didn’t turn any up so he spoke, “we have to see what we’re dealing with inside the office too. I won’t be able to set anything up if I don’t know what I’m working with.” He began quickly opening drawers, noting the items Cutter had on and in his desk. He glanced over the cabinets along the wall, but most of the items seemed irrelevant to his purposes. “Alright, I think I’m done here. Hallway still clear?” While he waited for Maxwell’s response, he stood flexing his feet, admiring the plush rug underfoot. He wished he could get pictures, but he had a pretty good memory for these sorts of things.

Jacobi was able to easily retrace his steps and get back to his office with no further difficulty. Maxwell easily guided him through a route change to avoid a guard, and Jacobi was glad he didn’t have to hide in a bathroom again.

* * *

They met up two nights later to go through what they had learned. Maxwell triple checked that the evidence the footage was changed was untraceable. Jacobi had asked why they couldn’t just hide that they had switched it, but had ended up tuning out most of Maxwell’s explanation when it got a little too technical for him. He understood that there would be evidence that the footage was faked, but security couldn’t recover the original and couldn’t find who had faked it.

“We should probably also change the footage in other areas too then, so it’s not a path straight from our office to Cutter’s.” Jacobi noted.

“Oh, good point. I’ll turn off cameras in a couple different places, especially around junctions so the path isn’t as obvious. But I’ll have to make sure not to block guards or the ones watching the feeds might get suspicious.” She thought for a moment, “I might be able to tie it into my guard tracking program, where it turns off every camera except the ones around the guards. I’d have to tweak it a little but it should work. We could try a test run, but if it messes up they could increase security.”

“I’m sure we could handle it, do what you need to do,” Jacobi said, leaning against her as they glanced over the screens in front of them.

He was in charge of planning the pranks, but he couldn’t decide between a couple products. He nudged Maxwell, “Hey Alana, which of these should I get? And what color?”

“She glanced at his screen. Get all three, can’t hurt. And hmmm, I think purple or green.”

“Purple it is.” Jacobi added the items to his list. He could’ve ordered online, but he wanted to cover his tracks more, so he was going to go buy them from the store, with cash. “I think we should do these three at the same time. We can’t do too many at once just because I won’t be able to carry the supplies in, and some of them if he’s knows he’s been pranked he might check and not set these ones off.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. So those are your favorites?” She asked, looking at his list.

“Nah, just the ones I think would do well as a first round.”

“First round?” Maxwell stared at him, incredulous. “Daniel, how many times do you think you can do this? Once he knows his office has been broken into, security will be crazy! I doubt we’ll get a second chance.”

He reconsidered his list. “Okay, I’ll move this one up, and put this one down, I don’t think I can carry the supplies for both of these at the same time.” He pointed to one lower on his list, “this one I might be able to do even if I can’t get in his office. I could maybe do it by accessing the wall space or from a different floor if they have extra security just around his office.”

Maxwell looked over his changes and nodded approvingly.

Jacobi kept examining his list, “this one might take too long for me to do by myself, besides needing a lot of supplies. I’ll shelve it for now.” Maxwell gave him a look at the ‘for now’ but didn’t say anything. He saw her look and explained, “it’d be perfect if we could time it to the night before an important morning meeting, so I don’t want to take it off the list, even though it would be hard to pull off.” He pointed at another item, “this we don’t even need to break in, so let’s save that.”

Maxwell shook her head. “If you were anyone else I’d think you’d been planning this for months with how many ideas you have. But no, you’re just like this.”

“And you love me,” he said with a grin.

She shoved him but she was grinning back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kepler is here :)

Cutter unlocked his office while humming. He was _thrilled_ because this week he sent out departmental reviews. He was so looking forward to spreading discord. Last time he had made a few people cry, and he thought he could top that this year. He was a little distracted, thinking of who he would target and how, and was taken by surprise when the door seemed to pull open of its own accord.

The reason immediately became evident. Once the door was open he could do nothing but watch as the bucket attached to his door spilled purple liquid onto his plush cream colored rug. Some of it splashed onto the front of his desk, and onto the chair he had for guests. He stood in the doorway, staring for a moment. Somebody’s day was about to get a lot worse.

He went into his office, skirting the puddle that was slowly soaking into the carpet, and sat down at his desk. The sun was glaring in his eyes, he looked up, frowning as he realized why. He tapped his phone. “Ellen. Get in here.” He spoke sharply, but kept the usual cheer in his voice. He hung up before she could respond, and moments later she was in his door.

She hovered there nervously, mouth open as she looked at the purple puddle in the middle of his office. Her eyes darted nervously between the bucket, still swinging gently, the puddle which was slowly spreading, and his face.

He waited a moment to let the situation fully sink in. “This… is a problem. I think we can both agree, can’t we?”

“Yes, sir. This…” she trailed off, shock firmly set in her expression. “I’ll call somebody right away, to get this cleaned up.” She started to turn away before considering, “is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

“My blinds seem to have also disappeared. Get those replaced. And Ellen? Find out how this happened.” He gave a sharp smile, the one that let him show off more teeth than should be allowed.

She bobbed her head and hurried away.

He laced his fingers and looked at the slowly swaying bucket still hanging from his ceiling. Somebody had put a lot of work into this. Whatever that liquid was, he was sure it would stain. Now who would do this? He was sure most of the employees of Goddard Futuristics would love to do something like this, so he wouldn’t be able to narrow it down based on motive. But who had the means to break into his office and set something like this up? And who would have the guts? That limited the candidates quite a bit.

Regardless of who had done it, security had let it happen. He decided to start with their review to cheer himself up.

* * *

Jacobi and Maxwell were at their desks, attempting to focus. They were tense, but whether with excitement or nervousness, even they couldn’t tell. They kept meeting each others eyes and having to look away to keep the facade that they were working. They had to avoid looking suspicious today. Jacobi was always restless after a well executed mission, but people usually assumed it was because of the adrenaline, or because he had gotten to blow something up. Maxwell usually kept it together better, but even she had her limits.

Kepler walked in and they both jerked upright, trying not to look like kids with their hands in the cookie jar. Kepler’s eyes roved over both of their faces, but decided whatever had gotten into the two of them wasn’t worth digging into. “Departmental reviews are this week. Depending on how Cutter wants to do it, you may be invited to the SI-5 meeting. Be prepared.”

“Yes, sir.” They chorused.

He eyed them one more time, “is there something I should know?” he asked.

“No, sir.” Jacobi answered quickly.

“No, everything’s fine, sir.” Maxwell said when Kepler’s eyes turned to hers.

“Good,” he said, and walked out.

They glanced back at each other, wide eyed, before quickly returning to their individual computers.

He could hear bickering from behind the closed door as he walked away.

* * *

Ellen and Tom Meadows, current head of Goddard security, stood uncomfortably in front of Cutter’s desk. Workers dodged around them as they fitted new blinds into the windows. One of them stepped in the purple spill, tracking the still wet liquid to previously untouched parts of the carpet. Cutter tracked this with his eyes, and he knew Ellen, at least, was also watching.

He snapped, “you,” pointing at the one who was now tracking purple around the room. “You’re fired. Get out before I decide to cut that foot off to keep you from making more of a mess.”

The man hesitated. He clearly was from a part of the company that didn’t deal much with Cutter. Ellen swiftly took over, she took the man by his elbow and guided him from the room. Probably for the best. It wouldn’t deal to have red along with purple on the rug. It would clash terribly. He could hear them speaking in the hallway, but tuned it out.

He turned to Tom. “Tom. Tom. Tommy. Remind me what your job is?”

Tom grimaced, “Head of Security, sir.”

“Oh that’s right! Head of Security. Head… of… security. And tell me, Tommy, what does our security department do?”

Tom was getting paler with every word. He, unlike the worker, had dealt with Mr. Cutter plenty. “Protect Goddard property from theft or damages.”

“Right you are, Tommy! So, Tom, can you tell me where my blinds went?” Tom opened his mouth to speak but Cutter kept talking. “Because that seems like theft of company property.” Tom shut his mouth. “What about my rug? It’s from Switzerland you know. Very luxurious. You could sleep on it. Why don’t you go ahead and feel it? It’s almost a shame it’s a rug, people only feel it under their feet. Go ahead, feel how soft it is!” He gestured broadly and waited for Tom to bend down. “Isn’t it very nice?”

“Very nice,” Tom agreed. “Very, uh, plush,” he tried.

“It really is! And I think that this purple stain would count as damages to Goddard property, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” he agreed. He was nearly shaking.

“So, Tommy. How exactly are your team protecting Goddard property from theft or damages?”

Tom opened his mouth but closed it before saying anything.

“Find out who did this, Tom. Find out how this happened. Or you and your entire department are going to become the foundations for the new parking garage we’ve been considering.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to leave, then bravely turned back. Cutter was impressed, not many people wanted to stay in his presence after he made his threats.

“Sir, until we find out who did this, I’d like to place extra security on the building, and your office in particular. Would that be alright with you?”

Cutter pretended to think about it. “Yes, good. See if you can keep it safe after something’s already happened.”

Tom hurried out.

Ellen had returned back to the room while he was talking to Tom, and stepped forward as he left. “Anything else I can do for you sir?”

“Get me a chai latte. And get Major Kepler up here.”

“Right away, sir.”

After she left, Cutter sighed. What an eventful morning. He turned to his computer, maybe he could add some notes to his review drafts before Kepler arrived. He wouldn’t be able to do voice memos with the racket the workers were causing. He glared at them ineffectually, as their backs were turned. He tapped on his keyboard, only to find it wasn’t working. He gritted his teeth. He would not throw a tantrum in front of these people. He wouldn’t let whoever had done this know they were succeeding.

* * *

When Kepler arrived to Cutter’s office, he glanced at the workers where they were installing blinds on the last window, the purple splash in the middle of the floor, with several surrounding purple smudges, the bucket, which was finally mostly still, and the man awkwardly hunching over Cutter’s computer trying to work while Cutter casually slurped his drink from his seat. He was mostly blocking the IT specialist from accessing the computer, and seemed to be pretending he didn’t notice.

“Mr. Cutter,” he drawled. “Redecorating? I would have gone for red. I think it would have matched your desk better.”

“Ha ha. Very funny Warren. You know how much I appreciate your sense of humor. Now listen. Somebody broke into my office. Security already let me down once, so I think it might be more of an intelligence job. Find out who did this, and end them. How does that sound?”

“I’ll put my team on it.”

“Very good, Warren. I’m counting on you. Don’t let me down.”

* * *

Kepler arrived back downstairs and went straight to Jacobi and Maxwell’s office. “New job. Let’s brief over lunch.”

“It’s 10:30 in the morning,” Jacobi pointed out.

“Yeah but I’m craving Ethiopian.” Maxwell groaned. Kepler’s favorite Ethiopian place was a 30 minute drive without traffic, and there was always traffic. “Is there a problem Doctor?”

“No sir,” Maxwell said.

“Wrap up whatever you’re doing and meet me in the parking lot in 10.”

He ducked back out of their office.

10 minutes later they obediently trooped out and piled into his car. Jacobi took the front seat, likely because Maxwell wanted to zone out for the length of the drive.

Jacobi stayed silent all of 3 minutes before asking, “so new mission? Is it out of town? Can we miss the departmental review?”

“I’ll tell you, when we get there.”

Jacobi slumped in his seat dejectedly.

“Patience, Mister Jacobi,” Kepler chided.

But only a few minutes later he pulled into the parking lot for a diner. Jacobi looked up in confusion, but didn’t say anything, only reaching back to nudge Maxwell and get her attention. They went to this place fairly often. A lot of the time if Kepler was worried about how long it had been since one of them had eaten a decent meal, he would drag them here for fresh air and a break from their work.

They got seated at a booth and Kepler pulled out his phone, showing them as he pulled out a program to block trackers. They knew this drill, it meant whatever they were talking about was sensitive.

They kept up casual conversation, Maxwell talking in vague terms about her current AI project until they got their food. Then, Jacobi leaned in and started to ask “what’s the new—” before Kepler cut him off.

“What. The. Hell. Were you two thinking?” It was very carefully not a yell at the end, but only because he didn’t want the rest of the diner paying attention.

“Major…?” Maxwell asks. Jacobi just went wide eyed.

“I got called to Mr. Cutter’s office this morning.” Maxwell’s eyes also went wide. “Our ‘new mission’ is to find, and end, whoever did it. Which obviously we can’t do, because you’re the ones who did it.”

Jacobi opened his mouth to speak, but Kepler held up a hand to stop him. “No. I don’t want to hear lies. You’re both terrible actors. I’m absolutely furious. Just tell me why. You know what Cutter is like. Why would you antagonize him like this?”

Maxwell looked down at her plate deferentially, so Jacobi attempted to explain: “well, I mean, he’s such a dick. And he’s rude to all of us, so we wanted to get a little payback.”

“And you didn’t think to run this by me because…?”

“Because you would have said no!” Maxwell answered. “You talk about how we have each other’s back and we protect each other, but this doesn’t count?”

Kepler took a deep breath. “We. Don’t. Kick. Hornets. Nests. Can’t you see how stupid this was? This is Marcus Cutter! And now we’re supposed to turn somebody in… Who do you suppose we throw under the bus? Because if we don’t catch anybody, we take the punishment. And Marcus Cutter is. Not. To. Be. Crossed.”

“Sir,” protested Jacobi.

But Kepler cut him off: “ah-ah-ah. Mr. Jacobi. Are you questioning your superior officer?”

“No, sir,” he responded obediently, but with a glower.

“Dr. Maxwell, are you?”

“No, sir,” she agreed.

“Good. Now tell me all of what you did, and if there’s anything else involved.”

Jacobi launched into an explanation: “I replaced his pens with the same ones but out of ink, and Maxwell wrote some code so that his computer won’t recognize keyboards anymore, so he can’t write anything. The dye on his carpet was the most obvious, and I also removed the blinds. We wanted to do more, but I wouldn’t have been able to get all the supplies in one trip.”

Kepler can’t help but note he’s much more enthusiastic about this than most of his mission reports. He’ll have to work on motivating his team more effectively. “And what precautions did you take?”

Maxwell took over, “we ran it like a mission, sir. I guided him and wiped the cameras. We did a test run and it’s untraceable. Even if they see that it was tampered with, they won’t be able to find out who did it. Everything was bought with cash from multiple stores in different cities, and wiped down for fingerprints.”

Kepler can’t help feeling a sense of pride. At least they took it seriously. “And who do you suppose we pin it on?”

Maxwell and Jacobi glanced at each other. Jacobi started, “uhhh, we could maybe pin in on a competitor?”

“And have everybody wonder why they didn’t steal any technology while in the building? No. Dr. Maxwell, your turn!”

“We could pin it on McDougal. He’s SI-5 so he has the skills to pull it off, but everybody hates him, so it wouldn’t be a loss.”

“You would throw a coworker to the wolves, just like that?”

“If it's McDougal? Yes.” She met his eyes boldly.

The waitress came back over asking if everything was okay. Kepler assured her it was and ordered a coffee. He could feel the start of a headache coming on and hoped the caffeine would help.

“I’m disappointed in both of you.” Maxwell hunched and Jacobi tensed. “You did a good job keeping yourselves from getting caught. But you clearly didn’t think this through. And what do we say about ideas that aren’t fully thought through?”

“If you don’t work out the details it’s nothing more than a daydream.” Maxwell and Jacobi muttered, Jacobi very heavy on the sarcasm.

“That’s right. And yet you carried it out anyway.” He tsked. “This is why you should have come to me.”

Jacobi scoffed. “Boss, you know you would have shut it down immediately!”

“Not if you had presented your case in such a compelling way. Solid pranks, not getting caught. Protecting each other. We could’ve found a fall person from the get-go, and possibly carried out more pranks with the extra manpower. But now,” Kepler sighed dramatically, “you’ve tipped them off. You won’t get another chance.”

Jacobi and Maxwell gaped at him. “You would’ve helped?” Jacobi asked, half in anger and half in awe.

Maxwell grinned, “well actually, Sir, we had a few that could be done without access to his office, if you want in.”

* * *

They were once again in Maxwell’s apartment, but this time Kepler was there. He looked over Maxwell’s code, listening to her explanation, then glanced through Jacobi’s notes and list of prank ideas. “I wish you two would put this much work into our actual mission prep.”

Jacobi leaned against him and smirked, “but Boss, that’s what you’re for!”

Kepler shot him a glare in return. “These three are good, but this one would just have Ellen dealing with it, and I don’t want to pull any pranks that don’t specifically hurt Cutter. He’s already going to make hell for everybody around him, there’s no point if it doesn’t reach him.”

Maxwell leaned in too, tucking her feet under her as she tapped away on her laptop while reading over Kepler’s shoulder. Pointing as she spoke: “I can handle most of those, but you two will have to manage that one.”

Jacobi agreed: “I can manage it. I was thinking we could go in from the outside and place it in one of the walls. A little more time possibly being exposed, but we should be able to make it work. Those ones we won’t won’t be able to manage unless things calm down. Some of them I knew I wouldn’t be able to do by myself, but there’s a chance now that you’re here.”

“I’ll help you Jacobi. Good work, team. We’ll make our move on Thursday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I conceived this fic before thinking about how much Cutter I would have to write. He is so hard to write.


	3. Chapter 3

Marcus Cutter was woken up at 4:37 am by a phone call. His personal cell phone, which very few people had the number of, was ringing. He answered it quickly. A call on his personal cell phone at this hour meant a serious emergency.

“您好这是中国领事馆文件通知您尚未收到重要文件。 如有任何疑问，请按星号—”

He hung up. A scam call on his number? Very odd. He would have Ellen look into it. He wasn’t sure how somebody could have gotten his number. And what awful timing. Now he was awake. He decided he would just stay up and go in to work early. He pulled up his calendar and saw he was reviewing the SI-5 today. That should be fun! As he looked, he also started to notice some odd events. He clicked on one and saw it was a new invitation, from his email. It looked like spam. He gritted his teeth and deleted the event. He opened his email and saw his inbox was full. He closed the window and dialed Ellen, no matter that it wasn’t even 5 am.

* * *

Ellen met him outside his office, which was being watched by two security guards. “I spoke to everyone on duty last night, nobody was away from the door so they couldn’t have gotten into your office. I’m working on getting you removed from all email and phone lists but there’s a chance we may have to get you a new number and email address.”

“Ellen, Ellen, Ellen. That’s unacceptable.” He patted her on the shoulder, “do better. And quickly!”

He strolled into his office, glad that at least the security team was good for something.

The carpet had been removed; they were trying to see if it could be cleaned but currently his floor was bare. There was a spot where the liquid had soaked into the floor, dying it purple. He had blinds again, but they had had to get him a new computer in order to allow it to connect with a keyboard. They were checking to see if any files had been altered while making his computer reject any keyboard they attempted to use. Knowing that his computer was involved meant it may have actually been a play from a competitor, but he wasn’t so sure. It felt very… personal.

He sat down and started collecting his thoughts for his meeting when Miranda walked in. It was rare to see her out of the basement labs or her own office. “Miranda! What a surprise!”

She stared with distaste at the stained floor. “Marcus, you’re not answering your phone.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve been having some trouble with it so I left it off. You know how it is.”

She raised an eyebrow, taking in the new blinds and computer. “I thought people were your department, Marcus. And yet, you let this happen.”

He frowned. “It’s under control. Did you need something?”

“No, just wanted to see which of the rumors were true. I’d heard that the stain was blood. Disappointed it’s not, but I suppose you were always better about cleaning up than that.” She turned to leave, “make sure I get your new number!”

“I won’t need a new number, Miranda.”

“Of course not,” she replied. “Make sure I get it anyway.”

Ellen came in after she left. At this rate Cutter thought he wouldn’t be able to get any work done. “I brought you a chai latte, Mr. Cutter. I thought you might want a boost since it’s an early morning.”

“Thank you Ellen. That will be all. I’d like to focus, so please keep the interruptions to a minimum.” He flashed his teeth at her in an expression that could only be called a smile in the most generous of terms.

7 minutes later he heard a beep.He ignored it. 12 minutes later there was another beep. Whatever it was continued to make beeps at alternating time intervals.

If the rumors had reached Miranda, as isolated as she was, everybody in the company must know about what was going on. He decided he would have to deal with this latest annoyance himself. He stood in the middle of his office waiting for another beep, when it sounded, he moved towards the direction it came from. Unfortunately the beeps sounded at irregular times, with long pauses in between each instance, so it was frustrating work trying to pin down where the noise was coming from. Finally he had it isolated to the top edge of the north wall, nearer to the west edge but not quite in the corner.

Whoever had done it must have accessed the wall from the other side, since security had assured him nobody had been in his office the night before. Unless they had planted the device when they had done the first pranks and only activated it today… He was glad he was meeting with Kepler today, maybe there would be news about who had done this. Security had proved useless. The security cameras had been bypassed and they hadn’t been able to find who had altered the feeds. He would check the security feeds from last night and see if they could find any new information. He might have to ask Miranda for help. She would, but he would never hear the end of it.

He moved back to his computer and sent a quick email to Kepler. He wanted him to bring his investigating team to the SI-5 meeting.

* * *

Kepler checked his email and then got up to go get his team. “You’re invited to the review. I expect we’ll also be giving a report on our findings. Meeting’s at 1300 hours. Let’s get lunch and go over talking points.”

Jacobi was already standing up, anxiety making him restless. “Right-o boss. I’m ready.”

Maxwell was slower, wrapping up what she was doing and saving her work before getting up. “Okay, Major, where are we eating this time?”

“I was thinking Thai, what do you think?”

“I can do Thai,” she agreed. Jacobi nodded.

They walked out to the parking lot together, Maxwell chattering about what she’d been doing with the new AI she’d been working on. Jacobi mostly tuned the scientific details out, but he could tell Kepler was fully listening and absorbing it. Kepler made sure to know enough about everything they worked with to be able to hold these conversations with them. Jacobi sat in the back to allow them to continue their conversation.

When they arrived at the restaurant they saw it was a fancy one. Maxwell looked at Jacobi, who shrugged. “Major,” Maxwell asked, “are you buying?”

He glanced at the two of them and then said, “yes, alright, I’ll buy, but I’m ordering for you both.” There were a lot of reasons for this. Kepler disapproved of a lot of their food choices. Maxwell especially usually wasn’t very adventurous, and after finding one food she likes from each cuisine, she orders that at every restaurant. Jacobi, when not paying, liked to order the most expensive thing on the menu, regardless of whether or not it’s something he’s likely to enjoy. They agree readily enough. He knows their likes and dislikes and always picks something they’ll like, even if it’s not what they would have chosen for themselves.

He only glanced at the menu before ordering for them. He ordered multiple dishes, so they know they’ll be sharing. Kepler glanced at the worried expression on Maxwell’s face and ordered her some pad see ew to be nice. It’s not her usual order, but it is something she’s comfortable with. He’ll make sure it’s not next to her so she tries the other dishes.

He flashed the anti-tracking app and they start to talk before the food arrived. It’s only a little past 11 so the restaurant is largely empty, but they still kept their voices low, partially out of habit. “Alright. I’ll handle the entirety of the review, you two will only be probably only be called on about the pranks. He’s going to be tense because of our latest, so be ready for that. Maxwell, what do you have?”

“I made a fake trail that when I access the altered camera data it looks like it was coming from McDougal’s computer. There won’t be any evidence on his computer, but if I can get access to it to ‘check’ for the evidence, I can plant it pretty quickly. I don’t think I would get caught. We could also leave it without any evidence and just claim he wiped it.” She paused, “if Cutter’s as desperate as you think he will be, he might not even care about evidence.”

Jacobi interrupted, “but if we pin it on him this fast, it means we can’t do any of the rest of the pranks unless we find a different fall guy.”

“Well,” drawled Kepler, “first things first. Maxwell, are you sure you want to pin this on McDougal? You know how Cutter is. Whatever happens, it… won’t be pretty.”

“Just the other day I overheard him explaining to Nayun what ddeok was when she brought it for lunch. She’s Korean! He’s so annoying. _And_ didn’t he almost get Alvarez killed on one of their missions because he didn’t listen? Nobody likes working with him and if we can’t fire him I think this is a fair option.”

Jacobi spotted the waiter heading over with their food and pivoted smoothly to talking about his plans to get a dog: “I was thinking about a big one, but I’m worried since they have a lot of energy and I work such long hours.”

“Hmmm,” Kepler mused, “you also travel a lot which isn’t great for pets.”

Maxwell glared when she saw Kepler put the pad see ew at the far end of the table, next to him. They thanked the waiter and as soon as he left Kepler picked up where they left off: “okay, but getting him fired is very different from whatever Cutter does to him.”

“If he gets fired he’ll just get a job doing something similar somewhere else. Nobody should have to deal with McDougal.”

“Okay,” he acquiesced, holding up his hands. “But Jacobi’s right. If we play that right now, we’re done, unless you have other office enemies. Let’s hold off unless Cutter forces our hand. Follow my lead in the meeting.”

“But if nobody’s caught…” Jacobi thought out loud, “won’t Cutter keep security on his door? We did all the pranks we can pull off without access to his office. We might be out of options, Boss.”

Kepler leaned back for a moment, thinking. He watched with pride as Maxwell tried all the dishes, and admitted she liked the kai med ma muang a lot. She still made him hand over the pad see ew though. Jacobi sampled everything and then went straight for the spiciest dish and took the rest for his plate. After they ate, Kepler paid and hustled them out to the car so they would get back for the meeting in time. It wouldn’t do to be late.

In the car he spoke again, “you’re right, Jacobi. We’ll give up McDougal, and save the other pranks for a rainy day.” They nodded in agreement. “And Jacobi, now that I’ve seen your list, if any of these happen in my office, there will be… _consequences_. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Kepler was sure that if he wanted to, Jacobi could come up with several more options. At least if Jacobi turned this energy on him, they wouldn’t be recycled ideas.

* * *

Cutter had circled the halls surrounding his room, focusing on the northern side. The noise was audible from this side too, but it didn’t seem as loud as it had been in his office. He couldn’t find a hole in the wall, but once he looked closer, he found a small blemish about 3 feet away. It looked like they had cut a hole in the wall, inserted the device from there, and then sealed the hole back up. That was good. It would have taken time. It meant there would more evidence. But… it also meant that whoever was guarding his door was incompetent. Whoever did this would have been there for a while, and making noise, but the security officers hadn’t gone around the corner to check. He needed to see who had been on duty last night.

His thoughts were interrupted by Ellen approaching, “Mr. Cutter, just a reminder that your meeting for the SI-5 departmental review starts in 10 minutes.” She wore her blandest face, but he could read her confusion at finding him glaring at a wall in the hallway. “Would you like me to bring you anything before your meeting?”

“No, thank you Ellen. Any updates on my phone?”

“No, sir, not yet. Sorry. We’re working on it—”

He interrupted, “then go work on it. Get it done, Ellen. I’d hate to have to find a new assistant.”

She fled, and he returned to his office. The device beeped and he forced himself to unclench his fists. At least the SI-5 team would know what he was dealing with. He could use it to inspire some urgency to the situation.

A few minutes later Ellen showed Kepler and his team in. It was, predictably, Maxwell and Jacobi. He really was becoming quite attached to those two. “Warren, how good to see you! And you brought Alana and Daniel too! How wonderful.”

A beep sounded. Maxwell furrowed her brow and glanced around slightly. Kepler didn’t react, but that was expected, he loved to keep a calm face. Interestingly, Jacobi also didn’t react. He wasn’t as practiced as Kepler at keeping his face blank. Cutter would have to keep an eye on that.

A new rug had been laid, so Maxwell and Jacobi couldn’t see the stain that they hadn’t been able to remove from the wood. He went to the door and called for Ellen, “could we get some more chairs in here, Ellen? I don’t want Daniel and Warren to have to stand the whole meeting.”

“Of course, sir,” she responded and disappeared to find more chairs.

“Do any of you want anything?”

“No sir,” responded Kepler.

“Alana? Daniel? Anything? No?”

“No, sir,” they said in unison. How quaint. Cutter wondered if they practiced that.

“Have a seat!” He gestured to the chairs and waited for them to settle. Maxwell and Jacobi watched Kepler and didn’t sit until he did. He loved how wary they were. “Well? What have you found?”

Kepler began his report: “the break-in showed a lot of talent. So far they haven’t turned up any evidence of files being tampered with on your computer, so it likely wasn’t someone from outside the company. The… actions also seem vindictive. We believe it was someone who has a personal grievance.” He paused, hesitating for a moment, “Mr. Cutter, sir, do you know of anybody who may have reason to want to target _you_ specifically?”

Cutter sat silently for a moment, letting the room stew. The device beeped into the silence. When Jacobi was nearly squirming with tension he said, in his softest voice, “Warren, are you implying that these attacks are my fault?”

“No, sir, of course not.”

“Of course not,” He echoed. “Now I’m afraid to say that I’ve been attacked again.”

Maxwell tilts her head and Jacobi’s eyes widen. Kepler slowly glances around the room. “It looks less… damaging… than last time.”

As if on cue, the beep sounded again. Cutter held up a hand towards the ceiling, as if to say, _this is what I have to deal with_.

“Ah,” Kepler said. “I was wondering…” he trailed off. “How long has it been happening? Has security investigated to make sure it’s not a threat?”

“No, I haven’t had them investigate it. It’s been happening all morning. I’m sure it’s fine.”

Kepler frowned. “Jacobi,” he snapped his fingers and pointed at the wall.

Jacobi gestured something to Maxwell, a quick flick of his hands that Cutter didn’t catch. He moved to the wall where Kepler had pointed and leaned in, concentrating. Maxwell gestured something back, it looked like ASL, which Cutter hadn’t bothered to learn much of.

Kepler was also watching, and he turned back to Cutter, “has it consistently been intermittent?”

“Yes.” Cutter was beginning to lose his patience.

“Dr. Maxwell has the best ears of the team, let’s see if she can tell anything through the wall, but if not, we might have to knock it down to make sure it isn’t a bomb.”

“What will she hear? A ticking noise? Warren, we all know that bombs don’t work like that. This noise has been going off since 7:30 in the morning and nothing has happened. I’m sure it’s just another way to _irritate_ me.”

“Jacobi?” Kepler prompted.

“It is unlikely, given that it’s been making the noise at alternating intervals and that it’s been going on for so long, but it’s possible. We’d have to get into the wall to make sure.”

Maxwell straightened up from where she had been leaning into the wall. “I can’t hear anything else, but that doesn’t mean much,” she reported to Kepler.

“Right.” Kepler turned back to Cutter. “I recommend we have this portion of the building evacuated until we can determine if it’s a real threat. Jacobi can disarm it if it is a real bomb.”

Jacobi nodded confirmation, even though it hadn’t been a question.

“I am not disrupting the productivity of this building due to this prank, Warren.”

“Sir, unfortunately this is a safety issue. Which means either we have to deal with it or we have to contact the local authorities and they’ll bring a bomb squad out. I think handling it in-house would be… preferable.”

“Warren, what are you implying?”

“Mr. Cutter, please. My contract requires me to protect the safety of this company. This bomb threat is threatening that safety. I would love to deal with it quickly and as quietly as possible, but if that’s not possible I’m _legally obligated_ to have it dealt with. However I can.”

“You would disobey a direct order?”

“Mr. Cutter, I don’t want anybody from our office to be hurt. If I think you are letting people get hurt, _unnecessarily_ , I don’t have a choice.” Kepler stands, straight backed, eyes clear.

Maxwell and Jacobi exchange glances where they’ve been forgotten by the wall.

“Oh, very well then Kepler. Evacuate the building. Check that it’s safe. And when it’s nothing. There. Will. Be. Consequences.”

Kepler nodded, “yes, Sir,” then turned to Jacobi. “Open it up.” He then went to the doorway and said, “Ellen, please get the fire alarms set off as a drill on this floor and the two floors above and below. You should leave until we turn them off.”

Her reply wasn’t audible inside the room, but he shut the door and a moment later the alarms started screaming.

Jacobi pulled a multitool out of his pocket and looked to Maxwell. She put her ear to the wall for a moment until the noise sounded, then she pointed to where it had come from. He made a cut a foot away, and then made a loose circle around. He gently levered the drywall off, but it crumbled into several pieces and he had to work it out. “Sorry boss, didn’t want to cut too deep in case I hit a wire.” He pried the rest out and then looked in. There was some dust rising from the pile of drywall and Maxwell leaned away, making a face.

Jacobi looked in and squinted. The metal frame and wood support beams were there, but nothing that obviously looked like a bomb. “Looks like we might be clear boss.” The device beeped again and this time Jacobi could hear it. He leaned in. “Major, I have eyes on. Doesn’t look like an explosive. Any gloves around? We might see if we can get a fingerprint off it.”

“Here, can you get it with these?” Kepler grabbed two pens off Cutter’s desk and handed them Jacobi, who raised his eyebrows as he took them.

Using one in each hand, he carefully pulled a small black object from the remains of the wall. “Looks like it’s just a speaker of some sort.” Standing he gently put the device on Cutter’s desk, placing the pens down beside it.

“So, Warren. It wasn’t a bomb. And now my wall is destroyed. You’ve emptied the offices out for a speaker. What should we do about this?”

Maxwell hesitated before speaking to Cutter, “Sir, if it’s alright with you, I can turn the fire alarms off so people can start coming back inside.”

“Yes, fine.” He flapped a dismissive hand at her. “Take Daniel with you. I’d like to speak to Warren alone for a moment.”

They hurried out the door. Jacobi started, “I can’t believe—”

“I know!” Maxwell agreed. She sat at Ellen’s desk and soon had the alarms off. She rubbed her temples, “god I wish Kepler had picked a different way to evacuate the building. I’m going to have a headache for the rest of the day.”

“Well, he was aiming for speed.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you think they’re going to bring us back in?”

“Probably not, but we’ll have to stay here the whole time just in case,” she rolled her eyes.

* * *

She was surprised when not 10 minutes later the door opened again. Kepler beckoned them in.

“So! Now that all that… ugliness… has been dealt with. Tell me how the investigation is going!”

Kepler began, “as I was saying earlier—”

Cutter cut him off, “I think you’ve spoken plenty, Warren. Let the others have a turn, why don’t you. Alana, why don’t you tell us.”

Maxwell looked uncomfortable, but began reporting regardless: “well, Sir, even though your computer was tampered with there was no evidence of theft of company property, tech, or any other information stolen, so we suspected it might be someone within the company. That would also explain why no security on the entrances saw anything suspicious. The person dodged security officers and was able to break into your office, so they also had a specialized set of skills, which rules out a lot of the office personnel, along with most of R&D, although a lot of them do have… broad skillsets… which might make them capable of doing it. They also tampered with the security cameras. I analyzed the data from the footage and attempted to trace it. Based on some code fragments I found attached to some of the footage, it looks like it came from, well. It looks like it came from McDougal, Sir. It’s not a perfect trace, it would be better if I could trace it while it was occurring, but based on what I have it points to him. He’s SI-5 so he has the skills required to pull something like this off, but Major Kepler could speak more to that. Now that there’s been a second attack, there may be more evidence, but as of right now, he’s our suspect.”

“Corey McDougal?”

“Yes, Sir. We don’t have a motive, Sir, but that’s what we know.”

“Very well. Thank you.” He knitted his fingers together in thought. “You all may leave. You too Kepler. We’ll do the SI-5 review later, after we’ve dealt with this problem in your department.”

“Yes, Sir.” Kepler agreed, and the team left.

They were silent on the way back down to their offices. When they reached Kepler’s office, Jacobi and Maxwell stopped as well, and followed him in. “That was a lot,” Jacobi said.

“Yes. Thank you Mister Jacobi. Maxwell, you did well. We’ll do dinner tomorrow. Now go do some work. It’s going to be a rough departmental review, I’d like to have at least two agents I can definitively praise.”

“Yes, Sir,” from Maxwell.

“Sure, Boss,” from Jacobi, as they filed out.

Kepler sighed after they were gone, and started to fill out a report for Cutter. At least McDougal didn’t have close family that he would have to contact.

* * *

Rather than drive together from work, Kepler sent them home early and texted them the address they should meet at. Maxwell invited herself over to Jacobi’s place beforehand to beg a ride off him. She always wanted a designated driver even though she never drank enough in front of Kepler for it to be necessary. They looked up the restaurant they were going to, it wasn’t so fancy that they would have to dress up. They compromised by having Maxwell drive Jacobi’s car. Jacobi was halfway convinced she just didn’t want to spend the gas money.

Kepler was already seated when they arrived and he frowned at them because of it. “Maxwell drove!” Jacobi said as soon as they were at the table, blaming her. She was notorious for driving far too slowly for Kepler’s taste.

Kepler raised an eyebrow, “and you let her?”

Maxwell elbowed Jacobi, “he made me drive.”

The other eyebrow raised as Maxwell and Jacobi sat. “Well, are you both satisfied with what you wrought?”

They knew he wasn’t talking about being late for their dinner. “I still think we should’ve put an actual bomb in the wall,” Jacobi announced boldly. “Just a small one.”

“No. Try again.”

“What did Cutter say to you?” Maxwell asked.

“Nothing too exciting. The usual speech about obeying orders and my place in the company. He also wants his wall fixed, but I’m passing that off to maintenance.” There’s a lightness in Kepler’s voice that’s backed with steel, telling them not to ask any further questions.

They backed off, even though they were curious why he had needled Cutter so much. He could’ve backed off about the idea of it being a bomb, and not made himself as much of a target.

“So? You didn’t answer the question. Are you two satisfied? Maxwell, you got an annoying coworker killed, our department is under further review, and Cutter is going to take out his annoyance on everyone he interacts with for probably the next month. So _are you satisfied_? Did you enjoy your little pranks? Was it worth it?”

Maxwell hunched, shredding the bread she had started snacking on. They hadn’t even ordered yet.

“Boss, why’d you go along with it if you thought it was a bad idea? Why’d you encourage us to do more?” Jacobi questioned.

“I wanted to make sure the lesson sunk in, and the best way to do that was to be involved.” He paused, idly scanning the menu, “besides, I don’t like Marcus Cutter either. But you two made bad choices. This was a bad idea. And until that fully sinks in for you both, I’m going to separate you.”

“What?!” Maxwell yelped.

“Boss, come on,” Jacobi complained. “We share an office, what, you want us to sit in time out?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You two aren’t allowed in your office together. I’ll draw up a schedule, starting Monday, for you to alternate working in my office. That way you two won’t be scheming together, and I can keep an eye on you.” Kepler smirked at them, pleased with his creative solution. “Two weeks to let it really sink in.”

“How are you going to explain it to the rest of the office? Won’t it look suspicious to Cutter?” Maxwell tried.

“I’ll say it’s a new training initiative. Everybody knows we do things a little differently in the SI-5. Nobody will question too hard.”

They frowned at him.

“Enjoy this dinner, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Jacobi. It’s the last time I want to see the two of you together for two weeks.”

They sighed, “yes, Sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to Cornichons_are_Underrated for letting me steal the mansplaining that 'McDougal' does. Go check out their fics, they're great!

**Author's Note:**

> this was partly inspired by several TMA fics I read where once the gang realizes they're stuck in the archives they fuck with Elias. And I thought that'd be a lot of fun to see happen to Cutter <3
> 
> this is unbetaed so if you see any egregious errors feel free to point them out! I think I switched tense like 6 times :\


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